Beautiful as Dhont’s eye for detail can be, and vital as his willingness to explore the unbearably tender pockets of adolescence often proves here, Close still finds its sensitive — if sometimes borderline sadistic — young filmmaker defaulting to universal pain whenever he fears that more personal feelings may be too poignantly ethereal to see on camera.

While it might feel callous to belabor the rushed and scattershot editing of a documentary that pushed through so many difficulties to exist at all, the circumstances that compromise the film are also the same ones that conspire to make it such an affecting tribute to Nicks’ daughter, a fitting testimony to the perseverance of her entire generation, and a satisfying capstone to a project that has always stressed the need for people in a community to recognize each other’s pain.

If Jarmusch’s latest often feels as though it lacks a pulse, this star-studded parable is held together by one consistent truth: When Hell is full, the dead will walk the Earth. And when the Earth is fucked, the living will do whatever they can to sleepwalk through the nightmare.

The film is at its best when Dieckmann slows down the action and revelations for its real charm: two ladies, on the road, talking.

Though the film is not more than sum of its parts, well, those parts are pretty great. You just wish they belonged to a slightly deeper film.

This story, like the people in it, wouldn’t have held together on dry land, and there’s something wonderfully indulgent about surrendering to the undercurrents that swirl beneath Alice’s friendships. But the run-and-gun approach that makes this movie possible is also what ends up shooting it in the foot, as the clock is always ticking and Soderbergh never has time to get out of the shallows.

Anyone expecting a three-course meal as rich and nuanced as Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” (or even a single dish as sumptuous as Juzo Itami’s “Tampopo”) might find themselves disappointed by a quick and dirty film that only aspires to offer the satisfaction of a light dessert, but Yoshida’s giddy fetishism makes for its own simple fun.

The sequel remains charming, beautifully animated, and often incredibly funny, but there’s a sense that writer Brian Lynch realized Max’s story needed a lot more padding this time around.

Wanuri Kahiu’s sophomore feature is just good enough to give its modest intentions a historic purpose, bringing fresh context to an old formula while hitting the expected emotional beats.

While never as dynamically involving as Christopher Nolan's "Inception," for which longtime Nolan director of photography Pfister justifiably won an Oscar, Transcendence still grapples with provocative existential concepts in similarly thoughtful terms.

The solid performances can’t distract from an overly ambitious and crowded plot.

“The Oldest Person in the World” remains an affecting watch — and potentially the first installment of a worthwhile series — because of how vulnerably Green interrogates why he cares so much about the subject at hand.

As a filmmaker, Flanagan deals in raw, go-for-broke emotion; it’s just that this time around, he’s using that passion to affirm the audience, not disturb them.

The film accurately reflects the tumult of mothers and daughters and intergenerational culture gaps, which are never nearly manifested or bridge. Reality is messy — anything else is the stuff of dreams.

Charlie Harper is the kind of film whose impact will always be the strongest as you’re walking out of the theater. The lack of originality and occasional on-the-nose dialogue cancel out most of its rewatch value, but it’s hard not to be affected in the moment by the sincerity of its storytelling and the chemistry between Robinson and Jones.

It’s a movie that often feels like a mega-mix of Jia’s greatest hits, but one that rehashes them with precious little of the ineffable grace that make each of them so valuable on their own.

Despite some pacing troubles and myriad undeveloped characters, Motherless Brooklyn functions well enough as a throwback to the intelligent, atmospheric studio private investigator dramas to which it tips a velvety fedora, and shows evidence that this dormant genre still has legs.

Keaton was an ahead-of-his-time innovator, and though Bogdanovich honors that legacy he doesn’t always live up to it: You’ll leave the film knowing more about its subject than you did when you walked in, but there’s little here that feels like it couldn’t be found in one of the many other accounts of Keaton’s life and work.

On a Magical Night is a fanciful tale of marriage and its malcontents; a muted sex farce that unfolds like an overwhelmingly French twist on “A Christmas Carol” for people who are sick of their spouses.

Apocalypse, for all its faults, has the audacity to make the MCU look small, and the conviction to make the DCU — if there even is such a thing — look foolish for confusing self-seriousness with gravity. If only these characters were allowed to be as complex as the ideas they fight for, Apocalypse could have represented a new beginning for superhero cinema.

A messy but ultimately interesting look a a group of downtrodden individuals who get mixed up in an organ harvesting scheme.

This is a movie full of lovely and lilting moments that invite you to reflect on the value of your own painful memories, and yet precious little of it is specific enough in a way that makes it hard to forget.

Army of Thieves is content to dig into its heist DNA over everything else (including, unfortunately, the rom-com sensibility it seeks between Sebastian and Gwendoline). That means unique, clever heists on a fast rotation, big twists, and major revelations, and some genuinely accomplished chase scenes.

Crystal Fairy has little to say beyond Cera's capacity to transform into an amazingly uncomfortable screen presence, something we already knew.

There’s much to be appreciated about the movie’s energetic pace, and the casting never fails to convince. But Iannucci’s restless scene transitions — rising curtains reveal new scenes, projected images provide in-scene flashbacks, and so on — confuse empty gimmicks for innovative narrative trickery.

A modest, nicely executed diversion, with a slim, not especially memorable story.

Although Doucouré steeps Cuties in emotion and experience, she abandons its grace to make crazier gestures.

Overall, Smile delivers a captivating and claustrophobic mental hellscape that will cause one to both grimace and grin.